Instincts !!!!!!!

Understanding human psyche is quite a difficult job. But instincts can give us a fair idea of the behavior and personality that these psychic forces govern. By instincts here, I mean the impulsive reactions or response to some external stimulus.

Instinct is the inherent disposition of a living organism toward a particular behavior. Instincts are unlearned, inherited fixed action patterns of responses or reactions to certain kinds of stimuli. Examples of instinctual fixed action patterns can be observed in the behavior of animals, which perform various activities (sometimes complex) that are not based upon prior experience and do not depend on emotion or learning, such as reproduction, and feeding among insects. Sea turtles, hatched on a beach, automatically move toward the ocean, and honeybees communicate by dance the direction of a food source, all without formal instruction. Other examples include animal fighting, animal courtship behavior, internal escape functions, and building of nests.

"Technically speaking, any event that initiates an instinctive behavior is termed a key stimulus (KS) or a releasing stimulus. Key stimuli in turn lead to innate releasing mechanisms (IRM), which in turn produce fixed action patterns (FAP) ".

A lot of times during your life, especially at the poker situations will arise where you have to make critical decisions very quickly. The first decision that comes to you in any dilemma is usually from your inner instincts or “gut feeling”. This gut feeling is a combination of your intelligence, experience, and knowledge that all work together to instantly give you a final conclusion.

One of My friend who has been in the HR department of Cummins was trying a switchover to the Legal Integration Department of Sapient.For this he have been undergoing this training in Delhi for more than a year now. About two weeks ago, as thier recruitments got confirmed ,the company asked for his preferences regarding the locations of his final postings. He had given his preference as Mumbai. But after having spent almost a year with other trainees, He made friends with a few of them and for once He thought of changing His preference to Gurgaon. However, on second thought, He decided not to. But before this final decision, He discussed this issue with a few others and asked their opinion about changing his preference. The two extreme instincts which he heard from them were:

1. "Yaar...there are limited vacancies in Gurgaon and if you too opt for it, then probably I won't get Gurgaon."

2. "Good yaar...tu bhi aaja, masti karenge!" (If you also come to Gurgaon, we'll enjoy!)

These reactions gave him some insight into the thought process of these two individuals which he was actually trained in.The reason was that Gurgaon office was considered to be having the latest state of art facilities and thus all the prime activities were actually carried from there. The fact that most of the top management team use to sit there,While Mumbai location was just a corporate office and it actually carried out the basic proceses and back office operations.

Some people lie and fake so very often and with such a great expertise that others just can't help being fooled by them.Actually the intincts can be distinguished from routine beahviours to find exactly how and what instincts are being used by an individual. A number of criteria were established by the research studies which distinguishes instinctual from other kinds of behavior. To be considered instinctual a behavior must a) be automatic, b) be irresistible, c) occur at some point in development, d) be triggered by some event in the environment, e) occur in every member of the species, f) be unmodifiable, and g) govern behavior for which the organism needs no training (although the organism may profit from experience and to that degree the behavior is modifiable). The absence of one or more of these criteria indicates that the behavior is not fully instinctual.

Psychologists do recognize that humans do have biological predispositions or behaviors that are easy to learn due to biological wiring, for example walking and talking.But instincts, being their response to external stimulus before application of any thought process to it, are their natural and true response and reflect their true character. And though the instincts are not always conclusive, they certainly help us understand others better.

Instincts are the province of the brain..................................